Rest in the House of My Bones
by MiddayFiddler
Summary: People shouldn't get old, she thinks. The fine needle refuses to be held in her calloused fingers. She feels sick, almost - Marilla Cuthbert has not been taught to be like this, to be doubting God and Providence. It was sun-kissed and fair Mary of Green Gables who did so, and in this very room, and in this very life. (Marilla/Mr. Blythe)


There is frost on the hem of Marilla's skirt, like tiny crystals of mirror broken into dust.

It will melt soon, and seep into her underskirt and stockings, and to her old, stiff, overworked knees. Her shoes damp, long not resoled. A chill running down her neck, down her back, down her reddened, unsightly hands and fingers.

There is a house of ashen bricks and it is not how Marilla remembers it.

What a foolish venture, she thinks. She wants to turn around. Gilbert Blythe can make one day without his book. The book is thick and bound in red and Marilla does not read its title. She thinks of ways to lecture Anne for forgetting the book, and for her getting sore throat. Marilla does what is needed first, until there is no time for want.

The house is bleak. It stands against the snow like a tomb, silent and restless and unaccomplished. The time has not stopped. The front door are painted, now, and when Marilla knocks, it makes a dull, unfamiliar sound. It echoes in the hallway.

There are twenty two steps from the master bedroom to the front door.

Marilla counts to hundred. Knocks again. The door opens and she sees a ghost.

"I apologize. Gilbert is in the barn, and I was-"

The ghost of John Blythe looks at her. His eyes are feverish - not the good feverish, not like she remembers, fueled by the rays of dusk filtering through the curtains. He is old. Old, and worn, as if the years did not just pass, but befell on him with all their weight. So is she, Marilla thinks, and does not want to think anymore.

"Mary," he says. He sounds like a ghost, too.

"John," she says. She does not correct him. She has not been called that for years. Decades. Centuries.

There is a book in her hands and she cannot recall why. John coughs and staggers, his face a grimace of pain and resignation. His fingers - and Marilla knows their touch and how warm they used to be on the skin of her hand and wrist and cheeks - are white in becoming one with the painted wood of the doorframe, and it's a waste, it's such a waste-

"I'm dying, Mary," he says and Marilla doesn't say, I know, I've seen it all, I've lived with and through and for it.

There are twenty two steps to the master bedroom and it takes longer than a whole human life to get there.

John Blythe is not a ghost. Not yet; his skin is dry and burning, like she used to imagine desert sands to be under the scorching sun, his breath is raspy and his voice is that of lungs filled with water and a throat filled with regrets. He is light. His fingers carve into Marilla's arms. She feels them through the jacket, rough and warm and real, pulsating and alive. He is saying something and she is answering and it's like being put underwater. No sound and no time and no thoughts but an impending imminence of death.

She puts him to bed, fluffs his pillows, pours him a cup of tea and doesn't leave.

The bedroom has not changed. Or, it did, but only as far as Marilla did - devoid of colour and of care, sharp edges made sharper and dark corners darker. It's a grim place now.

"...do you remember?"

John Blythe is talking. Still; his words blend into a breathy disquiet. There is a tear on his pillowcase and it's a thing in the room easiest to eyes.

"Yes," she says, because whatever it is, she remembers.

"The green dress," he says, and it's of fever or longing, one or the other. "You wore your hair undone - I gave you the bluebells, then-"

The tear is deep. White feathers are struggling to escape; one or two had already, and, carried by his breath, landed in his hair. It is insignificant, the kind of things men do not notice, taught to deal with nothing lesser than matters of life and death. Gilbert is not coming back yet.

"-would take you to see the ocean - blue and warm - and the cities-"

The sewing kit is in the bottom drawer, just where late Mrs. Blythe used to put it. She needed Marilla to get the thread through the eye of a needle, back then. The blue and purple embroidery threads are still here, unfinished and unused and forgotten.

"-I promised, I promised-"

People shouldn't get old, she thinks. The fine needle refuses to be held in her calloused fingers. She feels sick, almost - Marilla Cuthbert has not been taught to be like this, to be doubting God and Providence. It was sun-kissed and fair Mary of Green Gables who did so, and in this very room, and in this very life.

His head rests on the pillow. His hair have a scent of sweat and meadowsweet. There is dusk in the room and Marilla leans close to the stitches. He must feel her breath; or not, unmoving, he may be resting or asleep or something else entirely.

"What did you want, back then?"

His fever must have receded; his voice is clear and strong, just like she remembers. Insistent, as if running out of time.

"Back then," she replies, "I was not allowed to want." You promised me the world and you within, she doesn't say. It does not matter anymore.

The tear is mended. The white stitches look like a scar on the pillowcase. It will be thrown away, she realizes, as it is done after a funeral. It's confounding; like learning that the whole life was spend doing something vain, something redundant and inessential.

"I wanted you."

Perchance just a draft of winter wind, rather than words. It is late; the setting sun is biting cold, the silence is harsh and unforgiving, the night is cruel in its inevitable approach. In the last interference of divine mercy, they are alone.

Marilla puts her head on the pillow next to his. The mend fits into her wrinkles; she breathes in and it's white and it's calm and for a fleeting moment, it's good.

John falls asleep. She doesn't.


End file.
